Recharging Standard Batteries

I knew an electrician who used to recharge his standard batteries with a home made charging device. Has anyone done this or seen one of these commercial chargers sold in Oz?

Also found this on the net. Anyone tried?

Well I've recharged loads of non-rechargeable batteries and they very seldom explode! The method (at own risk remember) is to use a 12volt car battery charger and to hold the battery and the wires on the ends. Plus and minus have to be the right way round of course, and I always make sure I hold the body of the battery. This is so I let go when it gets hot! That way, it doesn't get so hot it explodes. Having said that, I always make sure that neither end of the battery is pointing in my face, or at anyone else. I'll recharge a battery for a few seconds, perhaps up to a minute, not long anyway. On hearing-aid type battery THREE SECONDS is plenty! And the results, quite good. If the batteries weren't totally dead to start with then the life can be prolonged quite a lot. The results are a bit unpredictable though, so it's best to avoid using the recovered batteries in life-critical equipment such as the smoke alarm. But for the television remote-control, calculator, spare torch, that's another matter. It is possible to save money by this method, batteries being a thousand times more expensive per unit of electricity than the 12v from a charger plugged into a socket on the wall! Helpful correspondents have commented that they have had some success using slow charging of non-rechargeable batteries. This is good, but I recommend caution with leaving such experiments unattended!
 
I've got a ReZAP Battery Doctor RBC883 from

Rezap

Works OK, you might get a few extra charges into an alkaline but I don't think they have the same capacity as a new alkaline. Works best if you put the batteries in the charger after every use ... if you run them flat they don't recover.

Cheers

Phil
 
I have a re-zap battery charger that can do this, however sooner or later the batteries tend to leak (invariably trashing some expensive bit of kit).

Gave up after a while. A better option is to get a decent batter charger (I have a Maha MH-C9000) and invest in decent rechargeables. The low discharge ones are great (eneloops, imedions etc).

The biggest problem with rechargeables is that the cheap ones (or older technology) dont hold their charge on the shelf. This makes them useless for most in-home applications (kids toys, remotes etc) that don't draw much. The newer limited discharge batteries address this issue.

As my wife is a photographer, every shoot meant a fresh set of batteries for the flash. Since we got the rechargeables we've probably save a fortune.

The smart chargers like the one above have lots of cool features and allow you to both 'break-in' the batteries, and also 'refresh' them.

I have a collection of AAA and AA, i use adapters with the AA for things that need C and D cells (mostly toys).


If you're going to order a bit of gear (ie lots of batteries and a charger) you'll probably save a fortune at present (due to the x-rate) ordering from:

http://www.thomasdistributing.com/

You need to be ordering a bit of stuff however as i think they only use premium couriers

Bruce
 
We also did this for a while until a battery sort of slowly burst in a loved toy and I had to dispose of the toy. I didn't think I could afford to buy specifically rechargable batteries as they were so expensive.

I also got a fright once when I picked up a battery and it was really hot and I realised it could have been a fire risk. I forgot about it and left it charging overnight. We just used a standard Big W or K Mart charger unit that had adapters for any size battery.
 
Gave up after a while. A better option is to get a decent batter charger (I have a Maha MH-C9000) and invest in decent rechargeables. The low discharge ones are great (eneloops, imedions etc).

I have a collection of AAA and AA, i use adapters with the AA for things that need C and D cells (mostly toys).
Bruce

Thanks Bruce and others. I have a portable CD player that I need to use for one day a month at a site with no power. Would the best option be to use AA rechargables and use with with the C adaptor? Will they be strong enough - compared to C's? The player takes 6 x C's.
I have rechargable "PowerBase" 2500 mAh Ni-MH for my digital camera. Can I use these in the CD player using the plastic C adaptors?

Thanks, RS :)
 
Thanks Bruce and others. I have a portable CD player that I need to use for one day a month at a site with no power. Would the best option be to use AA rechargables and use with with the C adaptor? Will they be strong enough - compared to C's? The player takes 6 x C's.
I have rechargable "PowerBase" 2500 mAh Ni-MH for my digital camera. Can I use these in the CD player using the plastic C adaptors?

Thanks, RS :)

I bet that will run fine, assuming you are gonna use 6 x AA with 6 x C adapators/casings.

I suspect all you would notice is that the stereo may not reach as high of a volume before distorting compared to using good C's, and the battery life would be around 1/3 the time. You might get a full day or maybe more at a fairly high volume setting, but you'd probably want to give it a test run before you go to this site if you want to find out how many hours or days it will last.
 
I'm actually only playing instructional CD's - not music so the quality doesn't have to be spot on. I probably run the player for around 3hrs total during the day.
 
You'd be fine.

If your AA's are good quality and in good condition, meaning are actually a genuine 2500mah capacity, then they'd be a little more powerfull/slightly longer lasting/better sound quality compared to cheap/crappy C size batteries available - meaning brands that sound something like sun-power, golden force, etc...

And if they feature a guy singing Mariah Carey songs badly in thier ads, then definitely steer clear.
 
So you rekon the KMart charger is not worth the hassle Ausprop?

yeh rezap is what we have i think. personally i wouldnt bother... but if you buy some rechargeable batteries it could be ok. we have a toddler so we had to bulk buy all shapes and sizes of rechargeable batteries.
 
And if they feature a guy singing Mariah Carey songs badly in thier ads, then definitely steer clear.

Lol. missed that mate. Don't you watch Australian Idol anymore? There's an interesting guy on there at present who I like. Stan the kiwi. Select part 5 - 25/10/09

Hey do you think I can use 4 x rechargable AA (with C adaptors) and 2 x duracell C standard batteries in the player at the same time?
 
Don't you watch Australian Idol anymore?

Nope, only ever watched it a few times.

Hey do you think I can use 4 x rechargable AA (with C adaptors) and 2 x duracell C standard batteries in the player at the same time?

You can do it, and it will work ok, but it won't last as long as if you had 6 x rechargeables or 6 x 1.5v.

I think the 1.5v batteries will initially just cause the rechargeables to drain a little quicker/provide a little more power at a given volume setting, but at the end of the day you can easily control the voume and that will decide the battery life you get out of it. But as the 1.5v's get used things change.

There is also the difference in that rechargeables tend to output near full power until they are nearly empty, where non rechargeables tend to gradually drop power ouput as they are used. So once those 1.5v are about half used or so, they will be down to about 1v and still dropping, so the stereo is not going to work well for long, unless the volume is fairly low, since the total volts would be falling below the minimum.

It all depends for how long and how loud it's gotta play? You could give it a test run... or if you were gonna do this just once then ok, but if you have to buy new 1.5v batteries everytime, then you'd be better off just getting a two more AA rechargeables & use 6 adaptors, assuming your charger can charge 2 x AA by themselves.
 
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